


From Ravnica, With Love (And Sarcasm)

by fancylances



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: (it's brief), Azorius Senate, Eventual Romance, Geno is kind of a shit too, House Dimir, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Niko is a little shit, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Ravnica (Magic: The Gathering), Slow Burn, d&d typical violence, lots and lots of swearing, ongoing campaign, two idiots in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26366842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fancylances/pseuds/fancylances
Summary: The backstory and selected campaign snippets of Nikolai Dragos, Azorius lawmage--5'6" with a 6'2" attitude, tiny ball of sarcasm and anger, who won't stop swearing.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	1. thirteen

**Author's Note:**

> maybe slightly incoherent collection of ramblings, backstory, and campaign events in mostly chronological order. who is this for? if you're reading, i hope you enjoy my terrible little bastard man!

Nikolai is thirteen years old, small even for his age and scrawny. Flat, straight blond hair and a spray of freckles on his pale face under brown eyes as warm as coffee. He’s thirteen years old when he sees Geno for the first time. At first sight, Nikolai can’t believe how dirty the boy and his father are.

He’s thirteen years old and peering through the delivery door of his parents’ shop—The Blue Flame Lantern, exquisite metalworking and home finishings—to see the loaded wagon and who’d brought the product in. A tall, haggard-looking man covered almost head to toe in soot and grime, sweat and—is that actual blood on his brow? Nikolai cringes, lip curling. Then, hopping down from where he must have been driving the wagon, comes a boy almost exactly as dirty as his father. He can’t be much older than Nikolai, as small as he is, still, and almost worryingly thin. Thick black curls practically drip with sweat in the heat, and he reaches up and wipes a smudge across his square face. But his eyes are clear, and bright green, when he glances up from the adults in conversation about the price of hauling and labor.

Nikolai darts back inside very quickly, sidling around the door frame to stay hidden. He’s found almost instantly when the boy rounds the corner of the open door.

“Hi,” the boy with the green eyes says, grinning and showing nearly all of his teeth. “We’re not gonna rob you.”

Nikolai blinks back at him, disbelieving and (now) frightened. “Um.”

“That’s why you’re hiding, right? You think we’re gonna rob you?” 

“No.” The lie feels like sand in his mouth. And the boy seems to sense it, like he can see grains of that sand dripping off his tongue.

The boy leans against his door frame, and all Nikolai can think of is how dirty it’s going to be when they leave. “Why are you hiding, then? Don’t like to meet new people?”

“None of your business,” Nikolai snipes back, his face going red.

The boy grins even wider, somehow.

“ _Yevgeniy_!” barks the man from outside, making the boy practically jump out of his skin. “Leave these nice folks be, get back in the wagon!”

Yevgeniy does as he’s told like there’s a fire under him, rushing out of the shop and back to his father’s wagon.

“Nikolai!” his father Arken calls, bringing him into the door frame to match. “Help me unload, won’t you, son?”

Nikolai nods, and grunts under the weight of the metal scrap as he struggles to get it into the forge. The wagon drives off once they’ve unloaded all the scrap the Dragos’ have paid for, and Nikolai watches them go with a little sneer.

“Zib for your thoughts, Niko,” his father says.

“I dunno,” Nikolai says, flattening his hair with the palm of his hand. “I think they’re kinda sketchy. The boy came over and told me they’re not gonna rob us, which makes it sound like they’re definitely going to try to rob us.”

Arken chuckles, squeezes his son’s shoulder. “That’s why we’re paying for protection, son. No one could lay a finger on our shop without Orzhov enforcers all over ‘em. Don’t worry yourself about it. Besides!” He throws the first batch of scrap into the forge, pumping the bellows and blasting the room with a wave of heat. “We’ve just signed a contract with the Kazimirs. Thank the _stars_ , because—” Arken halts his speech, takes a sad look at his son, and sighs. 

“Dad?” Nikolai prompts him. 

“You’re getting too old too fast,” Arken laughs sadly and takes a seat by the hot forge. “We’ve just had a good number of smelters back out on us. The only product we’re bringing in is from the Vorels, the occasional rare metals from Megozish, and now the Kazimir contract. We need all the help that we can get.”

Nikolai takes a seat across from his father, his mouth turning down at the edges. “Is it bad?”

“No!” Arken tries to assure his son. “No, we’ll be fine. Stefano has his own job, now—” His eyes drift away, drop to the floor.

Nikolai knows enough, by now. Knows that his big brother Stefano got a job two months ago at an Orzhov-run stable cleaning horse shit from the flagstones. He knows because Stefano told him, and told him not to tell their mother that he’s been giving half of his paltry income to their father. Knows that the reason they’re scrabbling for suppliers is that the pay for those Orzhov enforcers has just gone up another ten zinos.

Nikolai’s knee bounces, and he worries his hands together until his fingers are practically in knots. There’s already a part of him that is burning against what he’ll come to learn is _extortion_. A part of him that so badly wants to protect his family, stop the cruelty of those in power against those who have no way to defend themselves. He doesn’t know what that part of him is, yet. But even now, the drive in him is determined—scared, anxious, but relentless.

“Maybe—” Nikolai says suddenly, pulling his father’s attention from the floor of the forge. “Maybe I can get a job there, too. With Stef. I can—”

“Niko,” his father cuts him off. And there’s a pained light in his eye when he comes to his son’s side and grips his shoulder tight. “You’re still just a boy. Let us worry about the shop, for now.”

Nikolai frowns, but he nods. Lets himself out the back door of the shop and into the alley, where he kicks a loose stone and watches it skip down the street. He can still hear his father’s forge as he makes his way deeper into Downside—shying away whenever he sees the shadows of the enforcers that prowl in pairs.

+++

“Hey.”

Nikolai jumps, hand to his heart, as he whips around at the sound of the unfamiliar voice in his ear. It’s the green-eyed boy, _Something_ Kazimir, from the smelting quarter. He’s found Nikolai in the forge again, and now that he’s here, Nikolai can hear their fathers talking out on the loading dock on the other side of the door.

“You’re Nikolai, right?” 

Nikolai catches his breath, chest heaving as he looks the boy up and down. Not as dirty as he was last week, leaning in with his hands on his knees, smirking.

“Yeah,” Nikolai says slowly, still unsure. 

“I’m Geno. My dad works for your dad now.” Geno holds out a hand in a way that seems to want to imitate every adult handshake he’s ever seen. Nikolai almost laughs, doesn’t quite mask the flash of amusement in his eyes. Geno’s smirk subsides, and he stands back up and away. “What?” He wipes his hands on the front of his pants, crosses his arms (defensive, embarrassed, used to defending himself).

“Why d’you want to shake my hand?” Nikolai asks, nonplussed.

Geno shrugs, looks at his feet. “I dunno. Dad always does it when he meets new people. Says it’s what polite folks do.”

Nikolai considers it, and after a moment of silence between them, he tentatively offers his own hand. Geno glances back up, fixes Nikolai with his bright stare, and then takes the proffered hand and shakes.

“You’re from Precinct Six?” Nikolai asks as they drop their hands after the briefest handshake.

Geno nods, and some of his confidence seems to be pouring back into him. “Must be nice to live in the First, there’s so much to _do_.”

Nikolai shrugs, drops his shoulders. “It’s fine, I guess. If you don’t mind the rich shitheads.”

Geno bursts into laughter, loud and hard and honest. Nikolai is almost as surprised as when Geno snuck up on him.

“Holy shit,” Geno says once he’s regained his breath.

“What?” Nikolai asks, the tips of his ears going hot.

“I thought you looked like someone who’d explode if they swore,” Geno says blithely. 

For a moment, Nikolai isn’t sure if he should be embarrassed, affronted, or both (or neither). So instead, he blusters out: “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!”

“Nothing!” Geno laughs, clamps a hand over his mouth and squeaks around his fingers: “Holy shit, you look like you _are_ gonna explode!”

Nikolai’s face is full red—he can feel the heat as real as if he’s standing in front of a full-fire forge. “Fuck you!” Nikolai spits instinctually.

Geno isn’t laughing anymore. Frozen mid-chuckle like he’s been struck across the face. Suddenly still, eyes wide.

“And you’re fucking lecturing _me_ about _polite folks_?!” Nikolai snaps, lip curled in a half snarl (adrenaline shaking in his fingers, his lungs). “Get out of here! Asshole!”

Geno scrambles away like a roach when the light comes on, out of sight faster than Nikolai has ever seen anyone move. By the time Nikolai leans out his window to see just how far he goes, he gets to see Geno’s father swat the boy over the head with the back of his hand—hissing in a not so clandestine voice: “Stay in the fucking wagon next time!”

Nikolai spends a long time perched on the edge of his bed—catching his breath, calming himself down. It shouldn’t have been that easy to push his buttons. He shouldn’t have snapped so easily. He shouldn’t have bitten Geno’s head off, but something in the way he’d _laughed_ at him set him off. It sits sour in his stomach, and it’s hours before the feeling dissipates.

+++

When the Kazimir wagon rolls up next week, Nikolai comes rushing down the stairs from his room and hangs around the forge until his and Geno’s fathers are busy talking. He finds Geno around the back of the wagon, and he seems to be having a rather difficult time unloading a particularly heavy piece of scrap—sweaty and grunting, hair sticking to his forehead.

Nikolai hangs awkwardly in the space behind Geno, flexing his fingers as he tries to think about what to say, how to say it, how loud his voice should be.

“Sorry,” Nikolai says at last.

Geno winces at just the sound of his voice, looks almost like he’s going to bolt again (nearly drops the scrap in his hands, scrambles to perch it in the back of the wagon).

There’s a silence where both of them stand half-turned to each other, eyelines distant and wandering as they waffle on the edge of speaking.

“I saw your dad hit you,” Nikolai says quietly, watching his shoes. 

Geno shakes his head, chews hard on his words and frowns through them. Ends up not saying anything, swallows and drops his chin.

“That’s fucked up,” Nikolai murmurs.

And then Geno snorts, a half laugh. He finally looks up, and Nikolai ignores the wet look in his green eyes. Geno’s mouth struggles between a smirk and a frown, but finally settles on the former. “Yeah, it’s fucked up.”

Nikolai avoids the look, flattens his hair with one hand as he finds more words. “Sorry. Again. I was… rude.”

The smirk picks up strength on Geno’s face, a stone rolling down a hill. “I guess you’re not polite folks, then.”

A little laugh strikes Nikolai’s chest, and he flicks his eyes up. “Guess not.”

Nikolai sidles up to the back of the wagon, and with a tug, he grabs the other end of the awkward piece of scrap Geno had been struggling with. With no further prompting, Geno grabs his end back up and they carry it together into the forge (Nikolai can feel his father’s eyes on them, and a different kind of glare from Geno’s father). 

They don’t speak again for the rest of the Kazimirs’ visit, but the tight, angry tension is gone between them. And Nikolai waves from the back door as the wagon pulls off—and Geno waves back before he gets pulled back into his seat.

Arken’s hand lands on Nikolai’s shoulder, and his fingers squeeze gently. When he looks up, Nikolai finds his father smiling down at him.

“Making friends?” his father asks.

Nikolai shrugs. “No. I mean, I was kind of a… kind of rude the last time he was here, so… I apologized.”

“Good,” Arken says. “It’s always good to recognize our mistakes and make up for them. That’s an excellent attitude to have, Niko.” And he pats Nikolai’s shoulder one more time before he steps in the door and back into the forge. “Will you help me with the bellows, son?”

+++

There’s a noise outside, something just south of a scream. A yell, a shout, something painful. Nikolai’s head shoots up from where he’d been crouched over his desk reading. He listens again. Stops breathing for just a moment. Again, a shout. The sound of breaking glass, and something metal hitting the flagstones with a clang.

Part of him tucks further into himself, wants to ignore it and go back to his book—let Ravnica take care of Ravnica. It’s not his business, that part of him insists. 

And there’s another part of him that flares with hot, angry determination. The second part wins out. 

Nikolai leaves his room, down the stairs and past the door into the main part of the shop, through the forge and out the back door. He leans half out into the alley (the day is already dimming, the smoke clouding the yellow and orange tones of sunset overhead). The gutter down the center of the alley is full of the day’s rain, and a ripple of movement comes his way as a body hits the ground _hard_ thirty feet up the alley. 

Even though they’re half in shadow, Nikolai can see the number of them choking the alley. Four of them standing, one on the ground at their feet trying its best to find some kind of footing. Whenever the figure on the ground tries to get up, another of the standing figures shoves it back down. 

“You see his face?” one of the shovers says, his entire voice an audible sneer. “Looks like he hasn’t had a wash in his life! What a disgusting loser!”

“Hit ‘im again, Baylen!” another shouts gleefully.

“Fuck off,” the figure on the ground rumbles—and even though he’s only heard it a handful of times, Nikolai knows that voice. It’s Geno Kazimir laid out on the ground by these shitheads. He gets to an elbow just as the biggest, clearly a minotaur by his frame, whacks him again across the face with what looks like a metal bar.

That part of Nikolai that wants to ignore it (go back to his book and hide and wait to read in the papers if he’d died or not) balks immediately against the surge of self-righteous anger that builds like a storm front inside of his chest. The adrenaline that floods through him in a wave makes his hands shake (or it could be the fear of that hulking shape of the minotaur, the weapons in their hands, the blood in the water trickling down the gutter at his feet).

How dare they? How _dare_ they use their numbers against someone smaller, someone who has no means to defend himself? He barely knows the Kazimir boy, certainly couldn’t call him a friend. But he’d be _damned_ if any assholes tried to hurt anyone on his watch, in his home. 

Nikolai’s hand fumbles for the closest object he can brandish against them, and he comes away with one of his father’s forge hammers. And with it he rushes blindly out into the alley.

“Hey _fuckers_!” Nikolai shouts, his voice shaking but amplified by the close buildings. The noise of their jeers stops instantly. “I already called the arresters, there’s four of ‘em coming to round you shitheads up!”

Still laid out in the gutter, Geno’s head turns to find him. And Nikolai can see the blood running down his face from a cut at his hairline, the swelling on the left side of his face—the surprise in his eyes. 

The biggest, the minotaur, looks disparagingly at Nikolai’s skinny frame and the hammer shaking in his hand. He snorts a laugh through his nose and weighs the metal bar in his hand with thoughtful appraisal.

“Get outta here before you’re mincemeat, too, kid,” the minotaur growls.

Nikolai’s breath hurts, his chest is shaking so hard. But he doubles down, puffing himself out.

“No, _you_ get out of here!” he commands. “Or the arresters aren’t gonna have anything left to arrest!”

The minotaur rolls his head and shoulders, limbering up, and raises his weapon to strike again. Nikolai’s feet are moving before he can tell them to, and the forge hammer finds a mark. Clashes against the metal of the bar in the minotaur’s hand and sends it flying across the alley (clanging loudly on the flagstones before rolling to a rest).

Standing over Geno in the gutter, Nikolai holds his ground (chest heaving, head spinning; terrified and angry, a noxious mix).

The minotaur backs away, just one step, and that’s all the concession the other gang members need. They scramble a step back to match, looking to their leader for guidance. The largest of them snorts again—a short, embarrassed noise.

“C’mon, don’t wanna take the chance to fuck with arresters,” the minotaur grumbles. The gang scuffles out of the alley, leaving it quiet enough to ring in Nikolai’s ears.

The hammer drops out of his shaking fingers. He gulps in a nervous breath and almost stumbles under his own weight on his suddenly weak knees. He grips a hand in his hair, mussing it from how he’d meticulously flattened it, and somehow doesn’t faint.

There’s a grunt and the scrabbling of shoes on cobblestones behind him, rousing Nikolai from his spiraling thoughts. Geno is trying to stand on his own again, and only gets to a sitting position before he loses the drive and plops down again on the dirty street.

“Stop, stop,” Nikolai commands, and is more than surprised when his demands are followed. “You’re bleeding, don’t move.”

“Am I?” Geno mumbles, pawing at his face and coming away with his own blood on his fingers. He grimaces, a pitiful look on his wounded face. “Wow.”

Nikolai crouches down beside him, his anxious face pinched as he inspects Geno from three feet away. And under that scrutiny, Nikolai feels himself being watched by those green eyes in return. Not with thanks, but with curiosity. With _surprise_. Like he’s never had anyone come to his defense. Like he’d expected to be crushed to a pulp, like he thought he’d deserved it.

“Okay, c’mon,” Nikolai says, and he pulls Geno carefully to his feet. “If we don’t stop the bleeding from your head, you’re gonna be dead anyway.”

Seated by the cold forge in the back of the shop, Nikolai holds a wet cloth to Geno’s head wound, pressing hard to clot the wound shut—at least enough to bandage him up. Scrubs at the blood that’s starting to dry on Geno’s face (in his eyelashes, they stick when he blinks) to get him at least presentable. Practically all of the left side of his face is going to be a giant bruise in a couple of hours, but for now Geno just looks _sad_. Quiet, thoughtful, and sad.

Nikolai frowns as he wraps a bandage tight around Geno’s head. The nervous shaking has just now worked its way out of his fingers and he finds himself watching the boy that has become his charge. Cleaned up a little, he looks younger—thinner, more tired and more hungry. He doesn’t look like the same annoying, dirty teenager that’s been nosing his way into Niko’s business.

Maybe he deserved a do over. Maybe they both did.

“You know,” Nikolai says, threading another bandage around Geno’s bloody knuckles, “they probably just went after you because you don’t look like you belong here.”

“No shit,” Geno grumbles, looking at his bandaged hand and flexing it.

Nikolai shrugs wildly. “Well, maybe you could try harder.”

Geno squints at him, something hard coming into his glare. The effect is lessened slightly by the swelling in his face.

“No, I mean—” Nikolai cuts himself off, frowns and gathers his thoughts. “I know it sucks. Being different. But sometimes it’s better if you try to blend in. It doesn’t change who you are, it’s not a _lie_. It just… tricks the assholes into accepting you.”

Geno’s shoulders settle. And Nikolai sees it—not for the first time, definitely not the last—something so smart, so appraising in Geno’s eyes. Like he’s running a thousand calculations, weighing possibilities, choosing path after path in his head in a matter of seconds.

“Is that what _you_ do?” Geno asks, leaning his elbows on his knees—forward and into Nikolai’s space by just an inch or two. 

“I don’t know,” Nikolai admits. “Maybe? I was born here, I _should_ belong, but…”

“You don’t feel like you do?”

“I don’t feel like I’m supposed to be here,” Nikolai supplies.

“What, like destiny?”

Nikolai laughs, something small and derisive, and he’s happy that it makes the corners of Geno’s mouth turn up. “No. More like my gut, I guess.”

“You trust your feelings more than fate?”

“You ask a lot of fucking questions for a guy that almost got his head caved in,” Nikolai protests with a laugh.

And then Geno chuckles, and there’s a stir of something in Nikolai’s chest. Something like a spark, a pilot light just lit.

“Must be the head wound,” Geno murmurs, touching the bandage Nikolai’s wrapped around his brow. “Sorry. For… _fuck_ , a lot of stuff.” He glances up and meets Nikolai’s eye. His mouth settles into something more serious, but not stark. Kind. “And thanks.”

Nikolai finds a smirk. “Yeah. Well, I wasn’t gonna let you lie there and bleed to death.”

“I wasn’t going to bleed to death.”

“You might’ve.”

They sit in silence for a moment, and for the first time in a very long time, Nikolai doesn’t find silence intimidating. That smirk turns into an honest smile, a movement so odd it almost hurts.

“What were you doing here, anyway?” Nikolai asks, brow quirked. When all Geno does is shrug, Nikolai presses it. “Did you come to see me?”

Geno brushes off the question with a hard laugh but still looks uneasy when he says: “Your scrawny ass? You wish.”

“Whose scrawny ass saved who? _Scrawny_. You’re one to talk, you look like you haven’t eaten in a year,” Nikolai cajoles, now with a full grin.

“Nikolai!” The new voice is Aniya, his mother, and he turns to find her starkly pale with a hand to her mouth. Her eyes are on Geno, on the bloodied bandages, on her son’s fading smile. “What happened? Is that the Kazimir boy? Is he all right?”

“Yevgeniy, ma’am,” Geno supplies, looking oddly sheepish.

“That back alley gang jumped him,” Nikolai says quickly, his lip curling in distaste again. “That’s the third time I saw them behind the shop, I think we need to get the Azorius—”

“They’re not a gang, sweetheart,” his mother shushes him, and she sweeps into the forge to take a look at Niko’s handiwork on Geno’s bandages. “They’re just confused children. We don’t need to bring the law into this.”

“Mom!” Nikolai protests. “Look what they did! They could’ve killed him!” He waves a hand at Geno as an example, which makes him shirk from the attention.

“I’m fine,” Geno murmurs, doesn’t meet the eyes of either of them.

And when Aniya turns and pins her son with a piteous, pleading look, Nikolai doesn’t press the matter any further. But it sits in his gut, and it stews, and he hates it.

“Well,” she says after another moment inspecting Geno’s bandages and appearing pleased, she smiles quietly and folds her arms. “I would say I’d be a poor host if we didn’t invite Yevgeniy to stay for dinner and rest up a bit before getting him an escort home.”

Geno’s eyes are bright and wide at even the prospect of a meal, and his eyes flick to pin Nikolai questioningly. As if an answer depends on his approval. Nikolai squints questioningly at him, then shrugs. In reply, Geno’s whole face bends into a pleased little grin.

“Surely, ma’am, thank you.”

They sit on the same side of the table for dinner, Geno eating delicately around the damage done in the alley and Nikolai barely managing to steer the conversation around how he’d run stupidly right into danger himself.

Nikolai hails a carriage and hands the driver the money given to him by his parents to pay for the ride. Geno looks on with an expression that’s almost piteous—embarrassed, humiliated—as he watches someone else’s money pay his way. Nikolai crosses his arms as the driver counts the zibs in his palm, eyebrow raised in Geno’s direction.

“What?” he asks, prompting Geno to jump slightly under scrutiny.

“No one…” Geno starts, starts to chew on his lip before remembering that it’s split and bruised, and starts again. “No one’s ever been this nice to me. Dinner, and the ride, and… and standing up for me.”

The foreign concept seems at first to bounce directly off of Nikolai’s skull. He can’t imagine how he and his family have done anything out of the ordinary. It’s just common decency. 

(Then again, he also can’t imagine his father having grabbed a forge hammer and running into danger like he had. He can barely believe that he’d done it himself.)

“Well,” Nikolai says, thoughts stirring slowly in his brain—not nearly as quick on the uptake as Geno appears to be (reacting so quickly to each new piece of information, every line of dialogue). “You can pay me back by not sticking out so much when you come back next time.”

Geno’s face balks at first—like this is another gift he’s not sure that he should accept. But his shoulders settle and he shrugs. “The next shipment is due next week, I could try—”

“No, stupid,” Nikolai sighs, uncrosses his arms and gesticulates with no real purpose. “When you come back around like… tomorrow.”

“What’s tomorrow?” 

“Do you want to hang out, or not?” Nikolai asks bluntly, throws his arms up in frustration.

The strange reticence that had come into Geno bleeds out of him in an instant, and his posture effortlessly goes lank and easy. A smirk hits his mouth, lopsided to compliment his wounded face.

“What, like we’re friends?”

“I saved your life! Yeah, we’re friends!”

Geno laughs, holds the side of his face that hurts. “Okay, okay, fine. We’re friends.”

“Good,” Nikolai says with a huff. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Good,” Geno repeats, and he swings himself up into the carriage and gives his address to the driver. And before it takes off, Geno pokes his head out of the window and grins down at Nikolai. “See you tomorrow.”


	2. fourteen

Nikolai is exactly fourteen when he realizes that Geno is his best friend. 

It’s his birthday, and the shop is closed. Geno is the first one there, an awkwardly-sized box under one arm and a full grin on his face. He’s even washed his hair (still needs it cut, the wild curls are starting to hang into his eyes). 

“Am I early?” Geno asks as Aniya lets him in the front door of the shop. The normally bustling shop is dreadfully empty, and the sound of silence is even louder in the close quarters. Hearing Geno’s voice, Nikolai comes running out of the kitchen and grabs him up in a tight hug, grinning ear to ear.

“Hey!” Nikolai says. “I told you not to get me a fff—” He cuts off his curse under his mother’s lingering eyes, alters the course of his sentence awkwardly. “I said you didn’t have to get me anything.”

“Pfft,” Geno blows a dismissive noise through his lips, presses the box into Nikolai’s hands. “Deal with it.”

They elbow each other all the way into the kitchen, arguing playfully under their breath. As Nikolai turns in the doorway, he just catches the edge of his mother’s expression.

It strikes him oddly, just the one second of sadness he sees there. The worried tilt of her brow, the sad twist of her mouth, the way her fingers knot together. It’s like looking in a mirror, sometimes. That anxious look that he’s inherited from her, the twin droop of their brown eyes.

But when she finds him looking, she perks up and smooths his hair fondly flat. The two of them linger in the doorway to the kitchen, with Geno having rushed in to pick at the bread and cheese left laying out on the table.

“He’s gotten tall,” Aniya says, her soft voice a laugh.

“Yeah,” Nikolai grumbles, his face flush, wondering when he’ll finally hit his growth spurt like Geno has (Geno’s also fourteen and already almost six feet tall and doesn’t show any sign of slowing). “More room to store all the stupid.”

“This cheese is _amazing_ , Mrs. Dragos!” Geno’s voice comes from the kitchen.

“Stop eating all the cheese, jerk!” Nikolai chides him, rushing past his mother and into arm’s reach of Geno—smacking his hands away, taking the food from him and stuffing it into his own mouth instead. They laugh and fight, elbows poking and hands in each others’ faces, shoving and reaching for scraps of bread.

The only other invitee to actually arrive is a girl from the market, Vittoria Saravo, who brings Nikolai a bundle of flowers that her mother couldn’t sell. She’s pretty, a little older than he is, with straight, velvet brown hair that pools around her shoulders. Nikolai doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to get his first kiss from Vittoria Saravo. He won’t like it very much, and he won’t be sure at the time why. She’ll apologize, and they’ll only speak two more times before never seeing each other again.

Vittoria sits at Nikolai’s left elbow, snacking on the fresh bread that Aniya has brought out of the oven. “Hi,” she says across Nikolai to Geno, who is sitting on his right. She leans out just a little to peer around to see the boy with the thick black curls. “I’m Vittoria.”

“Geno,” he says with cheeks full of food, holding out a big, square hand.

“Chew your food,” Nikolai chides him, curling his lip.

“I’m working on it!” Geno insists, waving the offered hand in Nikolai’s face instead.

Vittoria laughs under her breath, a little smile on her mouth as she watches Geno make exaggerated chewing motions in Nikolai’s direction (wailing of “get your fucking disgusting mouth of my face—did you just spit _cheese all over me_?!” screeched just under Nikolai’s breath as he shoves at Geno’s shoulder to get him away).

The sound of a gathering crowd reaches them through the front door of the shop, and Vittoria is the first to her feet. She leans out the open doorway, returning only moments later with a smile on her face.

“It’s some kind of travelling show,” she tells them. “Musicians and dancers. Come on and see!”

Just as Nikolai opens his mouth to rebuff her, Geno is on his feet with a grin to follow. The protestation sticks in Nikolai’s throat just as his parents reenter the kitchen from the forge.

(Just in time to see the frustrated tears building up in his eyes, the aimless movement of his mouth as he struggles to find the words he wants to use; the way his fingers tie into knots until he’s nearly worn them raw.)

“Wait—” Nikolai finally manages, moves awkwardly out of the kitchen and toward the street out front to follow Geno and Vittoria—leaving his birthday behind.

True enough, there’s what looks like a troupe of street performers out in the springtime air. They’re not wearing Rakdos colors, so they must be harmless. A few men and women with instruments, one of them singing in a clear voice. Two women are dancing a beautifully choreographed waltz, and a crowd from the shops around them has started to gather at the display.

“They’re gorgeous,” Vittoria says with a pretty sigh, tilting her head as she watches the dancers twirl. She sees Nikolai emerging from the front door of the shop and smiles. “Don’t you think?”

Nikolai rubs a hand up and down his opposite arm, frowning as he watches the display. Their movements are undeniably smooth and free, and sure, the dancers are objectively pretty (he supposes).

“Sure,” he answers, frown buckling deeper as he watches the dancers sway. 

Then, from the gathering crowd, a pair of watchers take hands and they prance out into the street to join the performers. There’s a cry of approval from the musicians and the tune picks up its pace and volume. Then there’s another pair, then another. Soon, the street is an impromptu dance floor—crowded with onlookers and amateur dancers.

Nikolai sees Geno’s foot tapping to the beat, his smile easy and wide. As if sensing that he’s being watched, Geno turns his gaze to find Nikolai (half a foot taller than him now, eyes incredibly green surrounded by the springtime verdancy). Geno opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but then is nearly jerked away from the spot by Vittoria.

Geno shrugs and lets her drag him out into the street for a dance. Leaving Nikolai alone on the sidewalk.

There’s a thunderstorm in his stomach. Boiling dark clouds rolling through the low parts of his body, a sudden rumble that shakes him down to his boots. Redness spreading shamefully up his neck and to his face. Nikolai crosses his arms over his chest, hugs them to himself as his frown buckles deeper and deeper. Sucks in a harsh breath, brows digging hard into his forehead and wrinkling it in disdain (in disappointment, in jealousy).

It hits him a little like a slap, shakes the clouds right out of him. _Jealousy_? Him? What the fuck could Nikolai Dragos be jealous of? 

(How carefree the two of them look; how effortlessly they seem to move even though there’s no steps, no structure; the way she makes Geno laugh, suddenly—louder than the music, echoing between his ears.)

“Hey, what’s up?” Geno asks—and Nikolai finds that Geno’s not swinging Vittoria Saravo around in the street anymore, but standing right in front of him. Hands on his thighs, leaning in just slightly (he’s sweating, just enough to plaster his bangs to his forehead; chest pulling in more breath than usual, still grinning that full grin at him). “I’m done, you can dance with her now, if you want.”

Nikolai’s lip curls in a little defensive sneer, ready to snap out his reply without thinking. But he reels it in, considers it, and doesn’t understand where it’s come from.

It slips out despite his misgivings, but the disdain has dropped out of his expression (his voice).

“I don’t want to dance with Vittoria.”

Geno grins even wider, somehow. Doesn’t waste a second before he grabs Nikolai’s hands from where they’re still clamped around his chest. Nikolai only has the chance to give out a single surprised yelp before he’s tugged out into the street (almost stumbles over his own feet, saved from faceplanting by Geno keeping him upright).

“Wait—” Nikolai protests, voice thin.

“If you don’t wanna dance, that’s okay,” Geno assures him, smirking. 

“I—” 

And he does want to dance. He can’t quite explain the sudden urge, the itching to move in time to the music together. His mouth can’t find the words, so he just nods instead. So, smiling, Geno drags him the rest of the way into the street where the rest of the revelers are lost in the music.

They’re terrible. Geno’s legs are too long, and he can’t keep a beat for the life of him. Nikolai can’t help but freeze up every time he thinks he sees anyone watching him. They’re not in time with each other, and neither of them really has any clue how to dance.

The next time Nikolai’s legs lock up, Geno shakes him slightly where their fingers are still linked. 

“It’s okay,” he says over the music (voice rough from shouting, laughing). “I suck at this, too!”

Nikolai’s entire chest loosens with a laugh, and his face blooms with a warm little grin. And so he lets Geno lead him in a rhythmless trot across the cobblestones, hands locked together. Dancing. Or something close to it. 

A minute later, and the procession has passed. The sunlight, golden as it starts to dip below the skyline of Precinct One (glinting off the ostentatious, ever-watching towers of Orzhova), dapples through the budding leaves and on Nikolai’s red and tired smile. Geno has an arm slung around Niko's shoulders, both of them catching their breath. The crowd around them, all still chattering about the impromptu performance, begin to disperse back to normal life. Neither seem to notice that Vittoria has gone, wandered off with the musicians and still dancing.

“ _Hey_ ,” Geno says, tone suddenly offended. 

“What?” Nikolai asks, brow puckering when he peers upward.

“You didn’t open your fucking present, asshole.” Geno can’t maintain his faux-offence and buckles into tight giggles. He shoves at Nikolai’s shoulder, separating them, and trots back off toward the shop. Nikolai follows.

Geno sweeps into the kitchen, snatches his present from the table and holds it out toward Nikolai with all the authority of presenting a gift to a pontiff, or a minister. Nikolai chuckles, takes the offering, and almost tears into the wrapping where they stand. But the murmuring voices of his parents approaching from the main room of the shop chase the boys up the stairs and into Nikolai’s bedroom.

Geno is practically pacing the room in anticipation, much to Nikolai’s amusement. Nikolai deliberately takes his time to delicately remove the newspaper wrapping (Geno hissing “get on with it!” behind a grin) and remove the present from its box.

It’s a handheld telescope, brand new and shining. Nikolai’s smile drops open in astonishment. Geno beams, crosses his arms.

“Did I do good?” Geno asks, clearly proud of himself.

“Yeah, I—” Nikolai can hardly believe it. How can something this gorgeous and expensive be _his_?

“You can see the stars so much better here than you can in Precinct Six,” Geno says. “I figured you could use it a lot better than I could, and—” And then he hesitates. Geno almost never hesitates. “And, well, we spent so much time on the roof last summer, I figured it’d be nice…”

Nikolai reaches out gingerly (afraid the hands that help with a forge aren’t good enough to handle an instrument this delicate) and takes the telescope out of the box. Black with bands of gold, long and tapered at one end. Nikolai turns the telescope to peer into the lens point-blank at Geno, whose reticence bubbles out of him in a laugh under close scrutiny. 

“Where did you get this?” Nikolai asks, taking it away from his eye to inspect the craftsmanship once again.

Geno shrugs. “Found it.”

Nikolai’s head snaps up, face pinched and frowning. “You _found_ it? What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means I found it.” Geno sits on the edge of Nikolai’s bed.

Nikolai’s voice drops to a thin whisper. “Did you… Geno, did you _steal_ this?”

It hangs heavy in the air like a fog has suddenly appeared between them. Geno chews at his bottom lip.

“If I did, does that mean you don’t want it?” Geno asks. There’s no emotion in the words. Like they were spoken by someone else. Like someone else is in his room.

“I—” Nikolai immediately jumps, and then swallows the next few words. “No, but—” Stops himself again, hates that he can’t fucking talk sometimes. It helps when he comes and takes a seat beside Geno on his bed. “Why’d you feel like you had to steal something for me?”

“Because I’m fucking poor as shit, Niko.” Geno’s voice is back in his mouth, and it’s bitter and sad. “If I wanna give my little sisters something better than Golgari fucking gruel, I’ve got to _take_ that bread, okay? My dad sure as shit isn’t doing anything for us.”

Nikolai blinks. “But my dad pays—”

“Your dad pays my dad to drink and gamble and fuck,” Geno spits. “He’s got five little bastards to take care of and another one on the way and we’re lucky if we see a _zib_ of what your dad pays us.”

Nikolai blinks again, and this time behind his eyelids he sees the Orzhov enforcers shaking his own father down, demanding more pay for protection they don’t need.

“I didn’t know,” Nikolai says (drops his eyes to his lap, turning his stolen present over and over in his hands).

Geno shrugs again, and some of the anger seethes out of him in a sigh. “I didn’t tell you.”

“Thanks,” Nikolai adds.

“You like it?” 

Nikolai nods. “It’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever got me.”

If he didn’t know better, he might think that he just made Yevgeniy Kazimir blush.

“Hey, it’s getting dark,” Geno cuts in. “Go grab us a couple snacks and we can go up on the roof and check it out. Make sure it works.”

“Sure,” Nikolai says, finally cracking a smile. “Meet you up there.”

Nikolai heads out of the room and toward the stairs down to the kitchen, not sure why it feels like his head is swimming.

Voices from below drift up the stairs, and Nikolai hesitates on the top stair when he hears Geno’s name mentioned.

“What do you think about the Kazimir boy, Aniya?” Arken asks, drying a dish with perhaps more attention than it really needs.

“Yevgeniy?” she intones blithely. “He’s polite, always brings his dishes in after dinner, never makes a fuss—”

“I mean…” Arken sighs, and he sets the plate and towel aside with a strange finality. “The effect he’s having on Nikolai.”

She blinks at him, shakes her head, doesn’t understand. “What effect is that?” she presses, voice already thin.

“You must see it. The party? He’s Nikolai’s only friend,” Arken says with a sigh. He rubs his eyes, looks like a man that hasn’t slept in a week as his entire frame sags. “We haven’t done anything wrong, have we, Aniya?”

There’s a sudden stiffness to her posture, and her lips press together until they’re a furious white line.

“You think there’s something _wrong_ with our son?” she snaps.

“Maybe we’ve sheltered him too much,” Arken tries to plead his case. “He’s neurotic, hardly interacts with other children his age, not like Stefano at all—”

“He’s a _teenager_!” Aniya hisses, keeping her voice low and marching to Arken’s side. “And don’t you _dare_ compare him to his brother—”

“Aniya—”

“Don’t shush me, Arken,” she hisses. “Nikolai is growing up, and all we need to do is be here for him. There is _nothing_ wrong with him—”

“You can’t say that—”

“I most certainly can—!”

His parents’ hushed voices meld into one as Nikolai turns stiffly from his position at the top of the stairs. Having heard all of it, each little pin of their conversation sticking in his lungs and making it harder to breathe. Feels it pricking up behind his eyes, in his chest.

There’s something wrong with him. He’s not right, not like Stef, not like his father. He’s small, and weak, and can’t get his words out right sometimes; he’s neurotic, worried, sad; he’s only got one friend in the whole fucking world.

And that friend is standing right in the hallway in front of him, leaning out of his bedroom doorway with the telescope held loosely in one hand. Close enough to have heard the whole conversation downstairs. Close enough to see the tears that are finally spilling down Nikolai’s face.

Geno’s expression twists into something he hasn’t seen on Geno’s face in a long time (lying in the gutter, blood on his face). Anxious—sad. Looking at him with a little frown that deepens the longer neither of them says anything (the echoes of the Dragos’ argument still drifting up from the kitchen).

Embarrassment hits him low in his stomach and nearly makes him nauseous—crawls up his neck and into his ears. Just standing there, crying in front of Geno while his parents argue about him on his _birthday_.

Frantic to escape the situation, Nikolai brushes by Geno and moves up the stairs to the third floor—past Stef’s old room and up the ladder to the hatch that leads to the roof. There’s still a chill in the evening air this early in the spring, and the sky is gray and violet with daylight nearly gone. He moves to the edge of the roof, perches there over the sign to the shop and blinks the hot tears out of his eyes as Ravnica moves on under his dangling feet.

Not long after, the hatch opens again behind him and he hears someone shuffling up behind him. Nikolai sniffles piteously, wipes at his nose with the back of his hand and instantly regrets it. 

It has to be Geno behind him. He doesn’t say a word, but he just knows it. Nikolai’s frown pulls harder at the corners of his mouth, digs lines in his forehead. Can’t get the fucking tears to stop pilling in the corners of his eyes, rolling down his face and dripping off his chin.

“Do you think something’s wrong with me?” Nikolai asks, watching his feet as they dangle over the open street. He frowns, tries to blink away the persistent tears.

Geno lingers behind him, then with a shuffling of movement, joins him sitting at the edge of the roof. At first, all he does is shrug. Then, after another moment of thought, adds:

“No. I don’t think so.”

“And—” Nikolai’s head tilts up to catch more of Geno’s face in his line of sight. “You’re not just my friend ‘cause I stood up for you? Like… not like you feel like you _have_ to?”

Geno laughs under his breath, then reels it back in. Scoots closer to Nikolai and nudges him with his shoulder.

“I don’t _have_ to be your friend. I _want_ to. Asshole,” he adds with a little smirk.

It catches in Nikolai’s throat, brings even more tears to his eyes (clearly not the reaction Geno had been going for, based on the sad tilt to his brows).

“ _Why_?” is all Nikolai can bring himself to ask, voice wet and breaking. And now that the dam’s burst, there’s not stopping the deluge of self-loathing that pours out of him with the tears. “I’m—I’m _weird_ and sad and neurotic and—and—”

“And that’s what _he_ said, not me,” Geno butts in. And Nikolai realizes that the sadness on Geno’s face has turned unexpectedly to anger. Red-faced and frowning, fixing Nikolai with a seriousness he’s not used to seeing in those jocular green eyes on his behalf.

“Yeah, and he’s my _dad_ —”

“Well, what the fuck does he know?” Geno bites back. 

Nikolai blinks, teary-eyed and stunned. 

“Your dad thinks you’re weird, but what the fuck does that even mean? Who’s he to say what’s fucking normal?” Geno sticks a finger into Nikolai’s shoulder, pointing maybe harder than he means to. “No one gets to tell you who to be but _you_ , Nik.”

Geno laughs bitterly, and when he turns his head away, Nikolai catches just a glimpse of the wetness in Geno’s eyes.

“Guess it’s kinda nice, though,” Geno says, tone much quieter. “That they care at all, y’know?”

“I care,” Nikolai says. Realizes that he’s said it out loud way too late to take it back. “I mean, I kinda fucking hate that you stole something and now it’s my responsibility—” Geno’s welcome chuckle lights something in Nikolai’s chest and he goes on through the tightness in his own throat. “But I care. _Fuck_ your dad.”

Geno’s laugh echoes from their perch on the roof, brings a few looks from travelers on the street below them.

“See, this is why you’re my friend,” Geno says through the tail end of his laughter, wiping absently at his eye. “’Cause you’re funny and brave and a little bit of a shithead.”

“Genya—” Nikolai begins. Geno chuckles at the term of endearment, but doesn’t interrupt. And just that little moment of levity is enough for the mood to break, for a laugh to hit Nikolai like a little arrow. He wipes at both of his eyes, clears them of tears, and leans heavily into Geno’s shoulder. Closes his eyes for just a minute, listening to the sounds of the streets below.

“You’re my best friend, Nik,” he hears Geno say (feels his voice rumbling through him from where his head is leaning into Geno’s shoulder). “You know that, right?”

A slow smile unfurls on Nikolai’s lips. “Now I do.”

Geno laughs, slings an arm around Nikolai’s shoulder. Pitches his voice up just slightly in an uncanny imitation of Nikolai. “You’re my best friend, too, Geno.”

“You’re my _only_ friend, asshat,” Nikolai chuckles.

“Best by default is still best!”

“That also makes you _worst_ by default.”

“Eh, I can live with that.”

Geno musses Nikolai’s hair fondly, which Nikolai flattens again with a growing laugh. They pass the telescope between them, pointing out the stars as they find them in the darkening Ravnica sky.


	3. fifteen

Nikolai Dragos is fifteen years old when he falls in love for the first and last time.

It’s the coldest part of winter in the Tenth District, and Yevgeniy Kazimir is shaking knock-kneed on the stoop of the back loading port of the Dragos’ shop in little more than a tunic, some pants, and a scarf. Teeth chattering as he smiles down at Nikolai in the doorway.

“Hi M-M-Mr. Dragos,” Geno stutters (perhaps a bit exaggerated). “Can N-N-N-Niko come ou-out and—?”

“What the _fuck_ are you doing?” Nikolai all but shouts, pulling Geno in through the door—too concerned to even worry about pulling it shut behind them. “You’re fucking _blue_ , dipshit! Do you know what pneumonia is? How the hell did you make it here without shattering into a million fucking shards of ice?”

“J-just lucky I guess,” Geno laughs as Nikolai makes a lap around him, digging into his father’s workshop on a mission.

Nikolai paces the forge and finds a thick, rough wool blanket and tosses it over Geno’s shoulders and head, smashing black curls into his eyes (doing nothing to hide the half moon of a grin growing on Geno’s square face). By the time Geno has pulled the wool back from his eyes, Nikolai is already stoking the forge into life (the bellows almost twice his size, throwing his entire body into it).

“Idiot,” Nikolai chides him, glaring over his shoulder as he forces air into the fire, flames shooting from the forge and warming the air. 

“Who’s the bigger idiot?” Geno asks, setting himself down on the floor and tugging the blanket snug around him. “The idiot, or the idiot he came through the snow to see?”

Nikolai pauses his work on the forge, scrunches his nose up in thought (or disgust). “The idiot. _Idiot_.”

Geno laughs, all his teeth showing and chattering. “Missed you, too, asshole.”

There’s a warmth that runs all through Nikolai’s insides, and he dismisses it for the fire now blazing from the forge. But that doesn’t account for the matching smile that’s pulling at the corners of his mouth as he rounds the forge away from the bellows and begins to prod it with a long poker.

“What’re you even doing here?” Nikolai asks, the coals bright white as he turns them—the heat beading sweat on his forehead, turning his freckled face pink.

“I just told you I missed you, assface,” Geno laughs (the skin around his eyes crinkles pleasantly, bunches up where he laughs—where Nikolai makes him laugh).

This time, the warmth catches him off guard. Stills the ire in his chest, brings him softly back down. It surprises him, but doesn’t scare him. It’s not a new feeling. Not really. It’s the same thing every time.

Every time? Every time _what_?

Nikolai shakes it off, plops himself down on the floor in front of the forge with Geno and flicks a smirk his way.

“Okay, so,” Nikolai starts in, and suddenly finds a shiver running through him. He looks up, sees the door he forgot to pull shut, and sighs. Shifts his weight, gets his legs under him to get up—

“C’mon, sit down. You just got comfortable,” Geno whines, rolling his head in exaggerated theatricality. “Besides, if you leave it open we can still see the snow.” His smile flickers for just a moment. “We don’t get snow in the Sixth. Too much smoke.”

Nikolai glances once at Geno, turns his head to look at the half-open door again, and finds himself suddenly weighted down by half of a woolen blanket. 

Half of the blanket he’d draped around Geno’s shoulders has been thrown over him, over his head and mussing his hair (which he tries to flatten surreptitiously, much to Geno’s amusement beside him). Geno nods at the flames still licking the forge, tugs his side of the blanket closer around him, and watches the snow falling outside the door in the alley.

Nikolai pulls his side of the blanket tighter to match, scooting closer to get a better share, and finds himself watching the snow, too. The warmth from the forge (the blanket, their shoulders touching) fighting the chill of the quiet air outside.

They talk in low voices, watching the sunlight disappear and the snow pile up in the crack of the door. They talk about the day. About the week since they’d seen each other. The shit happening in the Fourth Precinct where ( _apparently_ , Geno says with gusto and a bit of bravado, _according to a guy he knows who was there_ ) the Boros and the Gruul met in a disastrous skirmish that brought down two buildings with a single giant boar.

“All the exciting shit happens to _you_ ,” Nikolai scoffs, rubbing at one of his eyes—

(the fire in the forge is dying, and he’s suddenly and strangely aware that the warmth is almost solely coming from their bodies pressing close together under the blanket)

—as he smirks up at his best friend. Feels a tiny pang in his gut at seeing a little frown forming on Geno’s mouth. “What?”

“It’s not exciting, it sucks,” Geno says. Circles his arms around his gangling knees and pulls them close to his chest. “You always gotta be on your guard on that side of the District. Never know when a fucking animal is gonna ram into your house and bring it to the ground, or a lab is gonna explode and take out half a block. Not like when I’m here.”

That frown melts away, turns into a fond smirk.

“You’ve got an amazing thing going here, Niko,” Geno says just under his breath as he leans in against the chill—and it’s the closest his voice has ever been, almost right in Nikolai’s ear. The only sound, suddenly, with the outside world muted by the snow. 

He shivers again. 

“Your folks’ shop,” Geno continues, “your mom’s cooking, your weirdo big brother. In all the District, you’ve got something, y’know? Just… don’t ever take it for granted.”

“What d’you mean?” Nikolai asks, his brow furrowing defensively. But he doesn’t turn toward that voice (doesn’t know why it feels like he shouldn’t).

Geno shakes his head, fights off the question with a smile. Tucks himself further into the blanket. “Nothing. I just like it here.”

Nikolai finally turns his head, looks away from the snow falling silently outside the door (melting where it sneaks inside, hits the warm stones of the forge). Finds a little smile on his own mouth, mirroring the soft, happy look on Geno’s face as they sit in the dying warmth of the fire and watching the gentle snow. Those little flames reflecting in Geno’s big eyes, dancing and bright, almost like the warmth inside of him is barely contained by those eyes. Geno’s gaze flits once from the open crack of the doorway to lock eyes with him, and that happy look bends into a grin that takes up most of his square face.

It isn’t like he’s hit with an arrow, or like his heart stops dead in his chest, or anything terrible and dramatic. Nikolai’s world doesn’t turn upside down or explode into light and fireworks. It’s just a moment. A moment too long in Geno’s eyes. A breath. A single word in his head:

_Oh._

With a single word, it all makes sense. It slots into place like the last piece of a long, exhausting puzzle. Another breath. More words whispered in his head:

_Oh. I love you._

When it twists in his stomach, it doesn’t hurt. How could it hurt? He’s in love. Holy _shit_ , he’s in love with Yevgeniy Kazimir. Sitting right next to him, can’t look away from those eyes. 

Geno is looking at him. Giddy green eyes still pinched with laughter. One of his eyebrows pitches up his forehead, and he cocks his head. 

“What?” he asks. “Do I have snot or something?” He wipes at his nose with the back of his hand, sniffs and wrinkles his nose.

The laugh that hits Nikolai feels like a sunrise. Like he’s laughing for the first time. “No,” he says (his voice feels so warm in his throat, like fire—like he’s swallowed the whole forge and the coals are stuck in his lungs).

There’s something that relaxes on Geno’s face—

(trapped under the wool blanket, shoulder to shoulder, awfully close—sharing the same heat; now a slack knee touches a thigh, another point of contact like a white hot star in the darkness—all turning to points of light in Nikolai’s head, suddenly, where every little part of him is touching Geno)

—and his smile slides easily into a smirk.

“What, then, fuckface? Already falling asleep, or something?” Geno asks, tilting his head the other way (inclining just that much closer to Nikolai—a movement he never would have noticed before he realized—).

And where that sunlight joy had filled him just moments before, there’s a cold chill to go along with it (like the forge and the snow, a beautiful dichotomy). His smile drops off, twitches back once, awkwardly. More words in his head, this time screaming:

_Oh no._

Oh _no_ , he’s in love with his best friend. What the fuck is he going to do?

“No,” Nikolai answers again. Hates that, apparently, his vocabulary has shrunk to one fucking word at a time. “No, fuck you.” Better. 

“Oof, that hurts,” Geno chuckles, a hand to his wounded heart. “You’re really fucking witty, you know that?”

“I know,” Nikolai says, completely unaware of what he’s agreeing to.

“Humble, too,” Geno says through a grin, and he elbows Nikolai in their closeness. His smile drops away when Nikolai doesn’t rib him back, doesn’t bite in like they usually do. “Hey. Are you actually okay?”

Nikolai’s eyebrows scrunch down his forehead. Every emotion of the last five minutes bunching up on his face with a tiny frown.

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly.

Geno watches him—for just a moment, those sharp green eyes taking in information and sorting it like a sieve; so quick, so smart (so handsome).

“Okay,” Geno says, and he pulls on Nikolai’s arm and brings them both to their feet. “Well, I can smell the dinner your mom is making, maybe let’s go see if we can help out, or something.”

“Yeah,” Nikolai says, and he shifts his weight (just an inch closer, already misses that close warmth). And under Geno’s concerned gaze, the fog of indecision (of confusion, of trepidation, of love and sudden fear) lifts away and he’s back in his own skin again. Smirks, elbows Geno back. “So you can be useful, for once?”

“Ouch,” Geno laughs as they step away to the kitchen, leaving the blanket pooled on the floor behind them in their shared shape. “Sharp wit, what’d I say?”

In the full dark of night, Nikolai lies flat on his back in bed, arm slung across his forehead as he stares into the ceiling like it’s been peeled away and he’s staring at the stars—reading imagined constellations, some adolescent prophecy as his thoughts swirl like water that runs through his fingers before he can catch it. The sound of Geno’s deep breath (not quite a snore, just on the edge and threatening with each inhale to fall into a deep, guttural noise) the closest sound as he’s curled up in a bedroll on the floor at the foot of Niko’s bed.

What is he going to do? What the _fuck_ is he going to do?

+++

“Nik,” Geno says, and there’s a somber note to his voice that takes Nikolai off guard.

“Hm?” Nikolai prompts, looking up. The night sky, cloudy for the past few nights, has finally cleared up enough to sit on the roof and stargaze.

“Can I tell you something?”

Nikolai’s heart jams itself into his throat on instinct. He swallows it carefully back down and nods in the darkness.

“Yeah, anything.”

Geno takes his time. Picks at something under his nail, frowns. Chews at his lip.

“I, uh—” Geno starts. “I got a job.”

Nikolai blinks. Well, that was unexpected. Not to mention anti-climactic, he thinks (ears going hot at the brewing internal embarrassment of hoping that _something else_ was about to happen).

“Holy shit,” Nikolai says instead, eyebrows shooting up. “What kind of job?”

Geno stares. Really stares him down. Looks like he’s thinking, processing, faster than Nikolai’s brain could ever work. He takes a little breath, then sighs.

“Library work. Just low-level stuff at Ismeri Library.”

Nikolai lights up, grin blooming and tension flooding out of him. “Prism University? You’re finally getting out of that fucking smelting district? Genya! That’s incredible!”

A smile flickers on Geno’s mouth (like he hadn’t expected so honest a reaction).

“Yeah, I mean—I’ll still have to stay with my parents for a while, ‘til I can afford to have my own place…”

“You could—”

“I’m not gonna do that to your folks,” Geno interrupts him like he knew the exact words Nikolai was going to use. “I know things are tough, even with the stuff your dad gets from us. So I’m not gonna be an extra mouth, Niko.”

“Okay, okay,” Nikolai sighs (trying for not the first time to get Geno out of that shithole). “You’re too fucking stubborn.”

“ _Me_?” Geno guffaws. “Fucking excuse me Mister Fastidious, I didn’t know I had to meet your standard to be in your presence—”

“I just want to take care of you, asshole,” Nikolai accidentally cuts him off. Realizes his mouth is moving without his input again and tries to course-correct (trying to ignore the giddy little grin on Geno’s mouth as he watches him flounder). “You’re—you’re my best friend and if there’s something I can do to help, I’m gonna fucking do it.”

“Whether I like it or not,” Geno adds with all humor.

“Whether you fucking like it or not,” Nikolai repeats, chuckles, falls so easily into that smile. He tries to shake himself out of it by completely changing the subject. “Hey, did they just hire you because your legs are so fucking long you’re the only one that can reach the top shelf?”

Geno punches him in the shoulder, shakes with barely-contained laughter. “Jealousy looks bad on you, Shortstack.”

There’s not much that could be said about Nikolai’s winning personality or his charm, but if there’s one thing Nikolai is good at, it’s reading people. And he can see the way that, even through their jibes and jest, there’s a far-away look in Geno’s eyes—one he’s trying to hide (with humor, the easiest way to hide it).

“So, what, is there anything… _weird_ about the job?” Nikolai prods—fights off the way Geno tries to muss his hair. 

Geno falters. “What? Why?”

“I don’t know,” Nikolai muses (flattens his hair). “It’s the Izzet, y’know? They’re all... super weird and chaotic and—” He shrugs, deferring what he actually thinks (why are you so tentative about _just_ a library job?). “And you tell me how every other week one of their experiments causes an explosion that takes out a block over there in the Fifth so...”

Geno’s shoulders seem to loosen, and he grins. “Pretty sure the library is like... the safest place I could be.”

(Doesn’t jab him with the obvious _what, are you worried about me or something?_ Which Nikolai definitely appreciates. But he _knows_ Geno isn’t telling him something. Not lying, but not telling the whole truth, either.)

“Hey, just promise me you won’t get your face blasted off by those weirdos, okay?” Nikolai asks, shoving at Geno’s shoulder.

Geno breaks into pretty laughter. “Yeah, Ravnica couldn’t stand to lose a face like this.” Geno contorts his expression into something ridiculous, wringing mirth out of Nikolai. 

He should say something. It’s been eating at him for weeks now. Staring at Geno across the room, watching him for as long as he can before Geno seems to notice (how obvious is he? Does everyone see it?). He should just come out and say something, right? What are the fucking rules about telling your best friend you’re in love with him? Is there a right time? What do you even say?

“Nik?”

“What?”

“Are you gonna fucking blink?” Geno chuckles, grinning like an asshole.

“Fuck you.” Nikolai’s face burns.


	4. eighteen

Nikolai is eighteen when he joins the Azorius.

It’s either late summer or early autumn, he’s not sure of it precisely. It’s cold, is all he knows at first. Stefano is back in his old room on the third floor for the night, having stopped by for dinner like he does sometimes (discreetly handing their father a bag of zinos when they think he can’t see). He lets the family know about his promotion, making his way (extremely) slowly up that proverbial ladder.

“What about you, Niko?” Stefano asks, leaning across the table to flick his little brother on the ear. “I hear the Golgari are always looking for shit-sweepers.”

“Stefano,” Aniya chides him (can barely hide her smile as Nikolai swats his hand away). “Language at the table, please.”

“Sorry, Mom,” Stefano murmurs sheepishly before he turns his snark back on Nikolai. “So, what, gonna hang around the shop for another couple years?”

“Well, _someone’s_ got to,” Nikolai mutters, rubs at his ear to hide the embarrassed flush of his face.

He sees his father’s eyes drop to his plate and hang there. Silent.

They’re doing _bad_ , Nikolai realizes suddenly as he peers at the look in his father’s eye. He’s seen that look before, but never so stark. The shop isn’t just not doing well, they might actually even be underwater. 

Nikolai excuses himself from dinner and hears his mother delegate dishwashing to Stef in his absence. Hears the complaining begin and almost smirks. But it’s not enough to break through the clouds of his thoughts.

Once in his room, getting ready for bed, Nikolai stares at himself in the floor length mirror, frowning. Tries to flatten his blond hair even flatter than it already is, freckled face pinching in annoyance. He’s still small, never hit his growth spurt like everyone else. Barely taller than his mother, just over five and a half feet. Helping with the forge has made sure that he’s no weakling, and there’s some muscle to his small frame, but he’s scrawny next to his father (and his brother, and not to mention Geno, who’s almost a foot taller than him now, with the kind of build more fit for an arrester than a librarian).

Maybe Stef has a point, he thinks as he pulls on a nightshirt. He’s eighteen years old, maybe it’s time to get out from his father’s shadow. See what else Ravnica has to offer. Everyone else has moved on—Stef just got that promotion at the stables, Geno could barely stop talking about library reshelving protocol the last time they’d seen each other; and here Niko is, still splitting wood to throw in the forge, stoking the bellows nearly twice his size, following his father’s footsteps.

But with the shop doing poorly, how selfish would that make him? He peers at himself, scrutinizing the way his face puckers and frowns.

“Your face is gonna stick like that,” comes a voice from his window.

Nikolai wheels around, hands bunched defensively into fists and ready to swing. But his surprise drops almost immediately into a weary sigh and his posture deflates in an instant.

Geno grins as he perches catlike on Nikolai’s windowsill, the hood of a dark cloak pulled up over his curls. He swings his long legs through the window and lets himself in.

“I don’t like this new thing you’re doing,” Nikolai nearly sneers, gesturing vaguely in Geno’s direction.

“What thing?” Geno asks blithely, doesn’t stop grinning.

“The—the—” Nikolai falters, hates his hesitation and gestures more erratically to make up for it. “The sneaking up on me thing.”

“Then stop making it so easy,” Geno says with a shrug. “You’ve been staring at yourself for like an hour with your window wide open,” he adds with a wave at the mirror. 

“The window was locked,” Nikolai sighs and takes a heavy seat on the edge of his bed. “Are you picking locks now, too?”

Geno hesitates, scratches at the dark stubble on his cheek, then hops down from the window to join Nikolai on the bed. He pointedly doesn’t answer the question, but Nikolai doesn’t press it (can honestly hardly remember what he’d asked the second Geno sits beside him).

“What’s up?” Geno asks him.

Nikolai shakes his head. “Nothing.” A pause, and Nikolai tries to flatten his hair. “I don’t know.”

Geno nudges their shoulders together in encouragement. 

With a long sigh, Nikolai pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t think I can stay in one place for the rest of my life.”

Geno blinks at him. “Oh.”

“The shop,” Nikolai clarifies, waves a hand like it will make his point for him. “I don’t want to take over, I don’t want to run this shop on my own when my parents are gone.”

Geno mulls it over, looks at his knees. “Well, what _do_ you want to do?”

Nikolai laughs mirthlessly. “You sound like Stef.”

“Sorry,” Geno replies through a hiss of laughter. 

Nikolai also looks down, finds their knees nearly touching and tries not to think too hard about it.

“Okay, so,” Geno presses, “what makes you happy?”

 _You do_ , Nikolai thinks blindly (finds the burning urge in his chest screaming against his better judgement to just grab Geno’s hand, link them together, tell him everything). But he stops himself, just barely.

“I don’t know,” Nikolai says instead. Another joyless laugh hits him the second he realizes it. _What makes him happy?_ Stupid little things make him happy. Seeing his mother smile, the smell of the street after it rains, winning an argument, when the air gets cold at the end of summer, stargazing; the way Geno laughs, how the skin around his eyes bunches up when he smiles.

Geno is looking at him, almost like he can read everything he’s thinking like it’s written in the back of his eyes. He looks so _sad_. A frown building at the corners of his mouth, eyebrows bunching up in concern. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Nikolai says (has to say something to wipe that sad look off Geno’s face). “I’ll figure it out.”

Geno takes a tight little breath, holds it for just a second. The edge of a word is on his tongue, but he holds that, too. The bed creaks as Geno shifts almost imperceptibly closer (the half an inch feels like half a mile). 

_Fuck it, I’m gonna kiss him._

The thought feels like a slap as it hits him, and panic bunches up in his lungs and throat. Nikolai breathes in once, a diver about to take a plunge. He feels himself move half an inch closer to match Geno.

But he can’t push past that panic (that doubt, that anxious pinprick of fear). He drops his gaze to the floor, moment lost.

_Coward._

“Listen,” Geno says after the longest moment of Nikolai’s fucking life. “You know you can tell me anything.”

Nikolai nods, doesn’t look up. “I know.”

He feels Geno’s hand on his shoulder. 

“Hey, what’re you doing here, anyway?” Nikolai finally pipes up, tries to settle back into his skin. “Besides being a creep and crawling through peoples’ windows?”

Thankfully, Geno laughs. “I can smell your mom’s cooking a precinct away,” he says with a growing grin.

“Yeah. She went all out ‘cause Stef’s here.”

“I know.”

Nikolai blinks, finally looks at Geno again. Feels a strange little tug in his heart that asks how and ignores it. “What, staring in _other_ windows, too?”

Geno scratches again at his stubbled face, shrugs. “Sure.”

He doesn’t stay for long. Nikolai runs downstairs to bring up a plate of leftovers, which Geno graciously digs into. They talk about the week they’ve been apart, Geno’s job at the library; the last shipment from Geno’s father, the end of the contract, the loss of product for the sake of money; the new nervous look in Arken Dragos’ eye.

At the last news, Nikolai sees Geno’s eyes drop to the floor. 

“Nik…” Geno starts, and he lets it hang in the air between them for what feels like a very long time. “If I told you that I got into something dangerous, you wouldn’t—you’d still—” Geno looks up and _stares_ at him. “You’d still be my friend, right?”

“Wh—” is all Nikolai can vocalize at first, like Geno had taken all the air out of his lungs. Panic and worry fills every empty space inside of him. “Yeah, Genya. Of course I would. What… What the fuck do you mean by that?”

Geno’s never looked at him like this before. Something anxious and sad, teetering on the edge of a word like he’s hanging off the edge of the roof. He wets his lips in thought and breaks eye contact.

“Nothing,” Geno tries to say at first, but Nikolai cuts him off.

“Bull _shit_ , nothing,” Nikolai pushes through the strange trembling in his chest. “What d’you mean _dangerous_?”

“It’s—” Geno wrangles himself silent almost violently, lips thin and pressed tight. “It’s like you said,” he continues more quietly. “Can’t stay in one place for the rest of my life, right?”

Nikolai opens his mouth to protest, and Geno cuts him off even faster.

“It’ll be alright,” Geno says. Slings his arm around Nikolai’s shoulder and holds him there in a half embrace for a handful of (wonderful) seconds. “For both of us.”

At the sign of lamplight from the hallway under Nikolai’s door, Geno bolts for the window and leaps through.

“Genya—!” Nikolai hisses after him, moving toward the window to follow. They nearly headbutt each other as Geno ducks back in and Nikolai tries to poke his head out to follow. They laugh under their breath, foreheads almost touching.

“I’ll see you when I see you, Nik,” Geno says with a wink. And he disappears down the side of the building and into the night.

Nikolai sighs. Drops back into bed and pulls out the novel he’s been reading. Somehow, eventually, he falls asleep.

+++

Nikolai wakes to a crash from downstairs. Broken glass, metalworking clanging to the floor. His mother’s scream.

He scrambles from his bed, tangled in his sheets and falling flat to the floor in blind panic. Before Nikolai can even attempt to right himself (to go charging headfirst into whatever made his mother scream; thirteen years old again and running into the street with a forge hammer in his hand) a pair of hands grabs him. A hard grip in his hair, another digging into one of his wrists.

There’s a scuffle in the hall, Stefano’s voice and a series of hard thumps.

Nikolai swipes at his attacker, short arms unable to reach the figure’s face as it looms over him.

“Get your _fucking hands off_ —” 

The hand holding his wrist lashes out and strikes him open-palmed across the face, shocking him silent.

“MOM!” Stefano shouts from the hall. Then another grunt as he’s hit just as Nikolai had been.

Nikolai’s eyes finally adjust. There’s a man kneeling beside him on the ground next to his bed, one hand still fisted in his hair and keeping his head pinned to the floor. The man’s in full armor, and even in the dark room he can see the Orzhov crest.

“Bastard—!” Nikolai seethes, but he’s hit again for his trouble. He kicks, he swings with his fists, but they only meet unyielding plate armor (bloodying his knuckles) as he’s dragged bodily from his room.

Before Nikolai can try to get any traction in his door frame, the Orzhov thug throws him down the stairs. 

Nikolai’s stomach drops out as he sails bodily through the air, and the scream catches in his throat as he hits the third stair and crumples to the floor at the bottom.

His mother screams for him. Nikolai struggles to pull himself up, pain already shooting up his arm (probably broken), the taste of blood in his mouth.

“Get up.” The thug speaks for the first time as he comes slowly down the stairs, voice gruff and heavy. “Time for payment. Get her off him.”

Nikolai realizes that the thug is talking about his mother. Her hands cold on his face, trying to turn his dazed expression to look at her, the swimming vision of her terrified brown eyes (very like a reflection, he thinks hazily). She’s calling his name, and then she’s dragged away. Nikolai blinks his vision back just in time for the thug to grab him by his arm (definitely broken, he thinks as he finally screams) and haul him out into the street.

Shutters close around them, and any flitting shadow of a passerby quickly sheers away or doubles back from the commotion. It doesn’t pay to get involved in Orzhov business, Nikolai thinks. The stars are beautiful overhead. 

“My boys!” Aniya keens in the doorway to the shop, her face white and streaked with tears. She’s held back by another enforcer, and for the first time Nikolai sees the shape of his father beside her. “Please, please! Not my boys! _Please_!”

Nikolai feels another blow hit him, a fully-armored fist hard across the left side of his face. Hard enough to jar his vision, turn everything white and send him to the ground.

Moments later, he’s joined on the ground by Stefano, who crumples beside him with a tearful groan.

“We can pay!” Arken screams, and Nikolai can barely make out the shape of him as he struggles against two more men in full armor. “Please, we can pay tonight!”

“The cutoff for payment was sundown, Dragos,” says a man near Nikolai and Stefano. “So we’re taking late payment as we see fit.”

“ _My boys_!” Aniya shrieks, pulling at her captor.

“Shut her up!” one of the men orders, and with a flash of an armored hand, someone hits her.

“You _fucking_ —” Nikolai growls—tries to pick himself off the street. Finds a boot in his face, kicking him hard in the nose. He can feel it break, feel the blood dripping down his chin. Hears Stefano groan again, sees two shapes around him as they beat him. 

And then they hit Nikolai again. And again. Blow after blow—in his face, his stomach, his back. After a while, he can’t even hear the pleading of his parents over the pain. He tries more than once to lash out at his attackers (grab an ankle as a foot sweeps in, punch at a leering face in an Orzhov helmet), but with each attempt they only hit him harder.

(He hears Stefano crying, calls of “ _Mom_!” punctuated by stricken sobbing and cries of pain; the wordless wailing of their parents.)

Nikolai wonders if they’re planning on killing him like this just as his vision starts to darken.

Then, there’s a light.

A bright flash of golden runes freezes the Orzhov thug’s arm just as it’s poised to hit Nikolai again. His bruised eye looks up, tries to focus on those runes. A detainment spell. 

“In the name of the law, _halt_!”

It’s a woman’s voice, clear as a bell and ringing, reverberating in Nikolai’s chest. Enough to bring breath back to his lungs in a gasp—too hurt, too tired to fight back, lying flat on his back in the street. As his vision slowly returns, he sees matching golden runes burst to life around the rest of the thugs, holding them in place.

Nikolai sees them rush in, their protectors. Azorius arresters and lawmages in white and blue, brightening the street in pools of golden light with their detainment spells. One of them, the woman whose voice he heard, stands directly over him. In full armor, a blue and white tabard with the symbol of the Azorius emblazoned on it, a cloak of rank slung half over one shoulder.

“Can you stand, citizen?” the justiciar asks, looking down at him as she locks the thug that had been beating him into arcane handcuffs.

Nikolai opens his mouth to answer, finds he can only cough (his own blood flecking his lips).

“Arrester Forban,” the woman calls, and when an arrester arrives immediately at her side, she foists her prisoner upon him. “Take the suspects to the nearest station and start processing them. I expect a full write-up when I arrive.”

“Yes, Justiciar,” the arrester says smartly, salutes and turns to give the same orders to the other arresters.

“Arrester Bryling,” she orders next, and another arrester comes into view. “Start obtaining statements from the witnesses. Those two first—” She indicates Arken and Aniya with a wave of her hand.

“On it, Justiciar!” the arrester says with another salute.

Once they’ve gone, the Justiciar raises her hands and casts another spell. Nikolai feels warmth and life flood back through him—a healing spell, one that she’s cast not only on him but on his entire family. Nikolai groans, sits up and dabs at his bloody nose with his broken arm. It’s not broken anymore, the spell’s seen to that, but his blood is still caked on (can still taste it).

“I’m Justiciar Brabant,” the woman says as the runes of her healing spell dissipate. She comes to a knee on the ground beside him and reaches into the satchel at her side. She puts pencil to paper and starts taking notes. “Name?”

Nikolai blinks almost blindly at her. Still stunned from the attack, the chaos, the sudden arrival of the Azorius. “Nikolai,” he says, finally. “Nikolai Dragos. That’s my brother—”

“We’ll get statements from everyone, Nikolai,” she assures him. “I want you to tell me everything that happened tonight.”

And so he does. His whole family is questioned as they stand (or sit, or lay) in the street. With the noise that had gathered the arresters and that had sent his neighbors fleeing into their homes gone, the civilians are starting to reemerge. Justiciar Brabant orders them back inside and finishes collecting Nikolai’s statement.

“You’ll all need to come to the local station to corroborate in the morning,” she tells Nikolai. And then the stoicism and professionalism in her strong face breaks for just a moment, and she smiles. “I saw you trying to beat them back. There’s a spark in you, Nikolai Dragos.”

Pride swells in his chest, crowds out the pain. Like he’s filled with light. That same sunlight of the golden runes.

He doesn’t wait until morning. He doesn’t head for the nearest arrester’s station. Nikolai drags himself all the way to Precinct Two, up the intimidating march of the stairs to New Prahv itself. Three triangular columns, the tallest building in all of Ravnica, staring triply down at him as the rising sun glances through grey cloud cover. 

He’s nearly arrested.

Once he’s been put in the _zone of truth_ , shining blue runes at his feet as he tries to get his words out in one coherent string, he finally gets someone to listen to him. Behind the dour-faced guards and one particularly zealous lawmage, Nikolai sees a tall vedalken woman in long judge’s robes. Her long, blue face is adorned with a gold-rimmed pince-nez, which she removes when she eyes him.

“What is his name?” the vedalken asks the lawmage.

“Dragos,” the lawmage answers, frowning.

“I see that you’ve detained him for questioning. Did you ask him why he came all this way with a bloody nose?” the judge asks. And when Nikolai glances up to catch her eye, there’s a nearly imperceptible spark alight in her dark eyes.

Sensing that he was no longer quite in charge of the situation, the lawmage begrudgingly steps aside and allows the judge to move closer to Nikolai. She’s nearly a foot and a half taller than him, lithe and graceful. Wrinkles of mirth appear around her eyes and her mouth when she moves to smile—a movement so subtle he almost misses it (she catches that he’s seen it, and one of her eyebrows quirks with interest).

“Dragos,” the judge says carefully, as though she’s spent a lifetime picking her words. “Is that your first or your last name?”

“Last,” he answers her. “Nikolai Dragos, from Downside—” He corrects himself with an embarrassed shake of his head. “Plaza South, Precinct One, Tenth District, ma’am.”

“You will address me as Judge Surien, or Madame Judge,” she corrects him.

Nikolai’s face flushes even darker, and he ducks his head (staring at the floor like he wants to sink into it). “Sorry, Madame Judge.”

“Why _did_ you come to New Prahv with a bloody nose, Nikolai Dragos?” Judge Surien asks. “Eyes up, young man.”

Like he’s attached to a string, Nikolai’s chin tilts back up until he’s looking into her calm, dark eyes.

“I want to join the Azorius, Madame Judge,” he answers, more strength in his tone than he’s had in his lungs all night. He takes a sharp breath, and it’s cold like winter air, filling him with a shock of adrenaline. “For _once_ I know what I want to do, and this is it.”

Judge Surien leans in, her gaze washing over his face—reading him. More than the spell that disallows an untruth to leave his mouth, she’s intuiting his meaning. 

“And why is that, Nikolai Dragos?” she continues. “What compels you to join our ranks so suddenly? Impulsivity is not one of our virtues.”

He opens his mouth immediately to reply. And then he holds his tongue. Closes his mouth and thinks. This alone turns up one edge of the judge’s mouth, the tiniest smirk.

“Justiciar Brabant and her squad of arresters stopped a group of Orzhov enforcers from beating my brother and I to death for extortion,” Nikolai says as calmly as he can manage (his hands bunching into trembling fists at his side). “Not because she wanted to save our lives, but because it was the right thing to do.”

Judge Surien nods. She moves away, long-fingered hand to her chin in thought. 

“Is your handwriting neat and legible, Nikolai Dragos?” the judges asks.

The conversation whiplash throws Nikolai for a loop, and all he can think of to reply is: “Huh?”

“If you are to become a page in my office, you will need crisp, readable handwriting,” she clarifies, and she turns back to him with a small smile. “I have five other pages, and you will have to work very hard to distinguish yourself. Zeal alone will not suffice to carry you far in this guild, Nikolai; we are not the Boros. Diligence, accountability, insight, adherence to the law. We are the Azorius, and the law is our bond. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Madame Judge,” Nikolai answers immediately (heart hammering in his chest, blood rushing through him fast enough to make him dizzy).

“Tomorrow morning at nine, you will come to my office in the Sova column. Dress neatly, be punctual, and be ready to learn.”

“I will, Madame Judge.”

+++

Nikolai has been to Precinct Six more than a handful of times in the last five years, but it still amazes him how dirty it is. Even the air is hard to breathe, sometimes, with all the coal dust and ozone in the air. But he knows the way, by now. Through the back streets, past the heat of the smelters, into the soot-stained residential blocks.

He hates it here. Hates the smell, hates the way people leer at him, hates that Geno has to live here (hates that part most of all).

When Nikolai knocks at the door, it’s one of Geno’s little sisters that answers it. She blinks up at him, brushes away her messy black curls and squints.

“You’re that boy the Geno goes to see,” she says.

Nikolai nods, flicks his eyes up the space behind her, craning his neck to see in. “Is he here?”

The girl shakes her head. “Nope. Hasn’t been back in almost a week.”

Nikolai narrows his eyes at her, focusing his attention now on her small face. “I saw him last night.”

“Then you saw him last, I guess.” She shrugs. “If you see him again, tell him to come home soon, okay?”

“Wait—” Nikolai tries to stop her, but she closes the door in his face. An angry part of him wants to rear back and double down, wants to knock even harder and demand entrance. But he stops himself just short. Fuming, Nikolai stomps away.

Interrogating street vendors and barmen for hours all yield the same results. Yes, they’ve seen Geno before, but no one has seen him for some time. As the sun sinks lower, the shadows of smokestacks and spires creeping longer and longer, Nikolai finds himself at a quiet crossroads. Most of the workers have gone home for the night, leaving the shoddy brick roads quiet and empty. There’s still blood on his lip from his broken nose, and he stands anxious and alone in the middle of Precinct Six looking for his best friend.

It’s dark by the time Nikolai makes it back home, and his mother sweeps him into her arms as welcome. The whole Dragos family huddles together around the table for dinner, hands linked tight. Nikolai’s gaze lifts to the dark window from time to time, looking for a familiar square face peering back at them. But he doesn’t come.

After dinner, Nikolai lingers in the forge. Watching the back door, listening for a knocking that never comes. He eventually drags himself to his bedroom. But he doesn’t sleep. He sits on the edge of his bed, watching the window. Pulls his desk chair to the window and opens it, leaning on the sill and listening to Ravnica carry on without him.

Nikolai wakes up just hours later, back stiff and aching from sleeping half out the window. He practically expects Geno to be sitting cheekily on his bed waiting for him, but no such luck.

He waits on the roof of the shop, his telescope in hand, and watches the sun rise. A horrible feeling has started to rise from his stomach like bile. Like he’s going to be sick.

_I’m never going to see him again._

He wipes stubbornly at the tears gathering in his eyes.

“Don’t be stupid,” Nikolai tells himself. “It’s been one day, he’s just off… fucking around or something. It’s fine. He’s fine.”

Nikolai stands, takes a breath, and moves on. He’s going to get dressed and go promptly to Judge Surien’s office. He’s Azorius now. He’s going to be alright.

He won’t see Geno again for almost ten years.


End file.
